Great hopes for old mine

We understand that a syndicate has acquired the old Bendigo quartz mine, near Cromwell, and immediate steps are to be taken to exploit its possibilities as a bullion producer.

In 1875 Professor Ulrich wrote:-"Logan's Reef and Cromwell Company.-This celebrated reef, in the possession of Messrs Thomas Logan, B. R. Baird, and G. W. Goodger, is without question the richest and best defined in the Province of Otago, and has been very extensively worked for nearly half a-mile in length, but is traceable for perhaps three-quarters of a-mile further east in strike."

Each member of that trio is reported to have obtained anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 a-piece from it before disposing of it to an English company, and up to the time of its abandonment by the latter it is claimed that nearly half-a-million pounds' worth of bullion was taken out of the Bendigo, or Cromwell, mine, as it was sometimes called.

This was all obtained from free-milling ore, but on reaching the 320ft level the ore became very refractory. At this depth the reef was 3ft in width, and was driven on for nearly 600ft, and at the 440ft level the reef was driven on for 800ft.

Sinking was then continued to the 520ft level, and at that depth the reef varied from a few inches to 2ft 6in in width, but no more free-milling ore could be found, and there being at that time no known method of successfully treating refractory ores in large quantifies, in 1884 the company had to close down.

About three years later the cyanide process came into use. Had it come into general use three years earlier, the history of the Bendigo mine would, in all probability, have been written differently, as it is claimed that precisely similar conditions prevail in the Talisman mine, the success of which has been almost entirely due to its profitable treatment of sulphide ores by means of the cyanide process.

Some recent assays of ore obtained from the 320ft and 440ft levels of the Bendigo mine show values ranging from a few shillings to 4 per ton and several parcels taken from the eastern portion of the claim disclose very rich values, ranging from 8 per ton to 17 10s per ton.

There are records available from former managers of the mine to show that the sulphide ore exists in well-defined and abundant quantities.

- ODT, 19.3.1912.